The Reaper War
by Firestorm96
Summary: This is the story of the Reaper War, from the highest admiral to the lowest refugee. It is a story about strategy and tactics, about courage and fear and most of all about survival. While Commander Shepard played a crucial part in winning the war, his tale has been told and retold many times over. My focus is on those who fought and died to make his victory possible.
1. Chapter 1: The Fall

All rights to EA and Bioware etc, etc.

**The Reaper War**

**Prelude**

The storm had to break eventually. For 3 long years the galaxy had been living on borrowed time- a reprieve granted to it by the Commander Shepard and his gallant crew aboard the Normandy. Fleets could have been built up, armies could have been raised, defences could have been prepared. But they were not. The Galaxy had been warned, but the warning was not heeded. It was about to reap what it had sown.

The Reapers swept forward like a Tsunami: massive, irresistible and coldly impersonal. In their wake they left a silence that belied the magnitude of their crimes. Whole worlds went dark, snuffed out as if they had never existed This was the Reaper's mandate- to wipe out all Galactic Civilisation every 50,000 years and they executed it with terrible efficiency.

The Batarian Hegemony was the first to be hit. What started as whispered rumours of shadows moving through the Vular System became cries of panic as the whole Reaper host descended on Khar'Shan. The Grand Fleet was caught at bay and annihilated, along with virtually the entire government and most devastatingly the Harsa comm buoy system, leaving the rest of the Batarian forces without direction or warning. The autocracy that had held the Empire together proved to be its downfall. Whole flotillas sat waiting for orders while their comrades were massacred just light-minutes away. Ships were destroyed without firing a shot as they had not been told to open fire. An evacuation attempt made at the eleventh hour turned into a bloody rout when it ran into a Reaper ambush at the Mass Relay. What few refugees made it through told stories of hysterical panic as ships scrambled over one another to reach the relative safety of the Exodus Cluster, all common decency forgotten in the rush to escape the slaughter.

**The Calm Before the Storm**

_**Arcturus Station**_

"How bad is it?" asked a visibly shaken Anderson. His blue hologram was shimmering with interference from the sudden spike in radio traffic.

"Bad" Hackett replied tersely "We just lost contact with 2 of our deep space outposts. There's something massive on long range scanners"

"How long do we have"

"Not long. I've sent word, the Fleets are mobilising" It always struck Hackett how cold the air was on Arcturus Station. He belonged on a Starship, where he could feel heat generated by the crash of guns and the stress of manoeuvres. Not this floating metal coffin. "Prepare Earth as best you can. And get Shepard out of the brig. I have a feeling we're going to need him soon"

"Yes sir, I was hoping you would say that" replied Anderson, "and may God help us all"

"Send Shepard to the Council to get me some backup. We're going to need all the help we can get if we are going to hold Earth. Hackett out". Hackett longed to continue talking with his old friend. To draw some re-assurance from him that not all hope was lost. In truth, he doubted that Earth could be held with such forces as could be mustered at short notice, but an attempt had to be made- the consequences of failing were too terrible to imagine. Command truly was a lonely burden, something that David Anderson knew as well as he did, and it was a relief to talk to someone who understood that sometimes there were no right choices. Chastising himself for the moment of sentimentality, Hackett went to planning his war.

The Systems Alliance Navy was perhaps the second most powerful in the Galaxy, excepting of course the Turians. Its strength was concentrated in 8 powerful fleets stationed near Mass Relays, ready to bring overwhelming force to bear at short notice. At the core of this was Arcturus Station- strategically located at a Secondary Relay(1) in the centre of Systems Alliance Space. No invasion of the Systems Alliance was possible so long as the fleets at Arcturus threatened one's rear and no cohesive defence was possible if it fell. To boot it was the headquarters of the Alliance Navy, Seat of the Alliance Parliament and the gateway relay to Earth. All of Hackett's training told him it was paramount that it should be held. Yet something didn't feel right, judging by what it took to take down Sovereign, even the might of the Alliance would not be enough to stop the Reapers head on. As much as the Alliance could not afford to lose Arcturus, it could even less afford to lose the bulk of its navy on the first day of the war. With the Reapers only hours away, Hackett summoned his Admirals and outlined his plan.

"As you are well aware, the Reaper", he paused, emphasising the word "invasion has caught us by surprise. The deployed fleets: the 6th at Terra Nova, the 7th at Eden Prime; and the 8th at Ontarom are currently dispersed in their Patrol Flotillas and will not concentrate in time for the coming action. Nevertheless, the armada we have available is formidable: we have 7 of the Alliance's 9 Dreadnoughts, 5 of her 11 Carriers, A full 70% of her armed spacefaring ships. This is a force we cannot afford to lose."

Admirals Isamu Tanaka of the 2nd Fleet and Hannah Shepard of the 5th Fleet protested loudly.

"You mean to say" Tanaka demanded, " That we are to be prepared to abandon Earth- our home world on which are living 11billion people we are sworn to protect- haven't you heard the stories coming from Khar'Shan".

"Not to mention" Shepard continued "That by losing Arcturus we place every colonist in danger"

"That is exactly what I am saying" replied Hackett, snarling furiously "If we look like we're going to be overrun, we will do a lot more good for those people alive than dead. Don't you think I've weighed the consequences? Considered every alternative? That's on ME goddammit! All those lives are my responsibility and if you disagree, why there's still time for you to resign your commission and name your successor." In the 20 years she had served with him, Hannah Shepard had never seen Hackett burst out like this. Momentarily cowed, she apologised while beside her Tanaka sheepishly looked at the ground.

"Thank you." Hackett snapped. "Now if no-one has anything else to contribute, I will carry on. 5th Fleet will jump from its station off the Citadel and take up defensive positions alongside the 2nd and 3rd Fleets overlooking the Arcturus relay. 1st Fleet is to fall back from Arcturus and guard the Charon relay from any Reapers that leak through. Then, once the 4th Fleet assembles over Earth, it is to link up and counter attack through the Charon Relay. The Fleets at Arcturus are to refrain from being drawn into a close range fighter and frigate melee until either the 1st and 4th Fleet arrive or I give the order. My Flagship will be the SSV Benjamin Davis. I will retain the Carriers of the, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Fleets as well as the , 69th, 71st and 55th Escort Flotillas in reserve. Is that understood?"

"Yes Admiral" The 5 Admirals cried as one.

"Do your duty then, and good hunting" The die had been cast. All that was left now was to wait and see.

**The Battle of Arcturus**

_**Aboard the SSV Tai Shan**_

The waiting was unbearable. The normal chatter of an Alliance Warship had fallen silent as tension reached a crescendo, leaving only the hum of the mass effect drive whirring in the background. Normally reassuring, to the men and women of the SSV Tai Shan it felt like fingernails on a chalkboard.

These sailors and marines viewed themselves as an elite. They were serving aboard the flagship of the 2nd Fleet- the same fleet that had liberated Shanxi and crushed the pirate scum on Torfan. Their ship, affectionately referred to as the "Titan", was the second newest dreadnought in the fleet. A Kilimanjaro class, of unparalleled power, nearing the firepower of a Turian Indomitable class and the speed and shields of a Salarian Narsurn class. Commissioned in 2185, she had a real claim to being the single most powerful ship in the navy- true the SSV Logan was newer, but the Titan had a year to iron out any technical kinks and improve crew cohesion. If any ship could pull them through it was her.

It was cold inside the dreadnought, any excess heat having been vented in preparation for combat. The A-Grav systems had been turned off and the crew were at general quarters- a clear indication that action was expected. But what action and against whom? One minute they were told to prepare for combat against the Batarians, then refugee and humanitarian operations within the Batarian Hegemony, the next they were to take up defensive positions outside Arcturus. If their homeport was being threatened then something had gone very wrong. The scuttlebutt was that they would be fighting Reapers- an ancient race of sentient killing machines that few had taken seriously until now. Allegedly, the huge ship that called itself Sovereign that had attacked the Citadel 3 years ago was not, in fact, a Geth super dreadnought but the vanguard of these "Reapers". The sailors hoped not- that thing, whatever it was, had in conjunction with a score of lesser Geth combatants, taken down 3 Alliance cruisers, not to mention the citadel fleet and the Destiny Ascension. If that was just one Reaper, god knows how they would defeat a whole fleet.

Admiral Tanaka's voice boomed over the intercom "Men and women of the 2nd Fleet, this morning at 0300 hours Alliance HQ received word of a hostile force of overwhelming power devastating the Batarian Hegemony. Reports are sketchy but it now appears that this force is headed our way. Many of you know of this force as the Reapers, whatever you call it is irrelevant. It will not get through you today. 11billion people expect you to do your duty. The consequences of failure are unbearable." They had only been on station half an hour. If already felt like a lifetime. And the waiting continued.

_**Aboard the SSV Benjamin Davis**_

In the CIC Hackett looked over the solar map one last time, reviewing the deployment. The Arcturus system was what was known as a phase gate- a nexus at which several relays converged, giving it immense strategic value. There were in fact 4 relays in the system, but at the moment he was only concerned with two- the primary relay to the Exodus Cluster from which the Reapers would be emerging and the secondary relay to Earth that he could not allow them to reach.

The three fleets under his direct command had been merged into one armada- Task Force Arcturus. All 4 dreadnoughts had been grouped into one formidable battle squadron that was to be the anchor of the fleet. They had formed a firing line behind the planet Themis, intending to use the gravitational effect of the gas giant, computed in minute detail by their sophisticated targeting computers, to fire shells from behind cover at targets identified by the 10 frigates of RADM Boris Malkovich's 1st Scouting Command. Malkovich, having distinguished himself in command of the 63rd Scouting Flotilla in the Battle of the Citadel, had used his newfound political capital to push hard for the construction Normandy Class frigates to be the eyes and ears of the fleet. Their mission was to use their stealth and passive sensors to relay firing solutions to the battle line of the main fleet without being detected. Theoretically this would allow the Alliance to bring overwhelming firepower to bear against the Reapers without them having a chance to reply. However, while the Normandy classes' stealth systems had been upgraded since the original SR-1 had been destroyed by the Collectors, nobody knew if they would actually work and projections about the survivability of these isolated ships in the main path of the Reapers varied wildly.

The Cruiser Squadrons (2nd 3rd and 5th) had formed a more traditional gun line barring the shortest route between the two relays. They would hold and attire the Reaper fleet while the big guns of the dreadnoughts pummelled them into submission. They were screened by numerous Escort Flotilla consisting mostly of light frigates of the Waterloo Class, who would keep the Reapers from simply overrunning the cruiser line. The rest of the fleet was in reserve behind Arcturus itself. These carriers and powerful frigate attack squadrons were safe from immediate attack but could use the gravitational slingshot of the K1.5III class star to enter the fight at short notice. This was the real ace up Hackett's sleeve. Unlike the Turians and Asari who concentrated on building fleets of dreadnoughts designed to dish out and receive heavy blows, the Alliance had placed emphasis on the symbiotic relationship of the fighter and the frigate and as a result had the largest, best trained and most technologically advanced carrier strike force in the Galaxy. Whether he needed to move in for the kill or hack his way out, Hackett knew it would be this force that he turned to. The plan was good, the crews were good. By all rights any force coming through the relay should be massacred. But the Reapers played by their own rules.

"DRADIS(2) contact. Multiple unidentified warships, bearing 115, closing fast. I count 6, no scratch that 12, no 15 capitol ships and 50 minor combatants"

"Roger that Lieutenant" came Admiral Hackett's curt reply "Designate contacts Reapers 1 through 65 and prepare firing solutions. This is it gentlemen" This was indeed it, Hackett was acutely aware that he had the lives of billions, perhaps even the survival of the species, riding on the outcome of the coming battle. Hackett had fought in half a hundred battles but never for stakes so high. He felt like he was on the bottom of the ocean, with billions of tons of water pressing down on him. He couldn't breathe; the pressure was a physical weight; the fear corrosive, like acid. He wasn't afraid of death but of failure, that by his own shortcomings he could doom the whole of humanity. That if he made mistakes people would pay for them in blood. And that even if he did everything right it still might not be enough. He looked around the bridge. The crew seemed eager for combat, relishing the opportunity to prove themselves in the greatest game of all. Hackett knew academically that most of them would be fighting their own private battles before the real one started, just like he was, but from his perch they seemed the best, most fearless warriors that ever lived. Even if they knew the Reapers like Hackett did they would not have lost heart- they would just trust that he would somehow pull them through, like he always did. That blind, unconditional trust was the worst part. To them, Hackett was as infallible as the pope, a benevolent paternal behemoth towering above them. But he was just a man- and all men feel fear. Hackett was just better at hiding it than most. He knew he could not afford to break the façade. He was their rock and their centre. If he ran, they would run; if he stood, they would stand. Steeling himself, he put on his battle mask and gave his orders.

Hackett's voice was calm, almost laconic as it rang out across the fleet "Dreadnoughts concentrate fire on their capitol ships, cruisers focus on the destroyers, don't let any through. Our enemy is tough but he is not invincible. Rely on yourself, your crewmates and your ship and we will be victorious. Fire when ready. Hackett out."

He was far from confident, that this was true. The Reaper forces bearing down on the cruisers were formidable but, if the Batarian Reports were to be believed, they were just a fraction of what the Reapers had available. Either the Reapers were stupid or they were up to something and Hackett didn't believe for a second the Reapers were stupid.

As if in response the Reapers boomed out a great noise over audible channels. Each capitol ship had chosen a name, a word designed to inspire terror in its foes: Monarch, Deity, Supreme, Dictator, Emperor, Imperator. Like Sovereign before them, they had come for one purpose- the extinction of all spacefaring life in the Galaxy. They were about to face their first major resistance.

_**Aboard the SSV Tai Shan**_

As the next most senior officer to Hackett, Nitesh Singh had been placed in charge of the dreadnoughts of the 1st Battle Squadron. All 4 ships under his command were of the Kilimanjaro Class (Logan, Orizaba, Aconcagua and Tai Shan) and their combined weight of shot would be the heaviest ever fired by the Alliance in anger. Ordinarily the Tai Shan and the Orizaba would house the flags of the 2nd and 5th fleets respectively, but with the fleets operating together it was too risky to have 3 Admirals grouped into one squadron- Hannah Shepard had moved her flag to the SSV New Orleans and was in command of the cruiser line, while Isamu Tanaka moved aboard the light cruiser SSV Scott and led the attack flotilla group. Singh had been serving aboard dreadnoughts for nearly his whole career, starting as an ensign in the original Everest. He had expertly placed is ships in high altitude orbit above Themis, just below the horizon. It was a gunnery officer's dream- the chance to fire on the targets of a lifetime with near total impunity.

"Firing solution achieved. Volley fire on my mark. MARK. All guns repeat and fire for effect." The Titan shuddered with recoil on the second mark. Each of the 4 Kilimanjaro Class Dreadnoughts was equipped with a 902 meter long MAC III MkVI mass accelerator cannon, capable of accelerating a 21kg ferrous slug to 1.5% the speed of light every 5 seconds. At that velocity it impacted with the force of a 45 kiloton atomic bomb- more than triple that of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima. Their firing computers had been synced to achieve time on target- the shots of each ship impacting at the same time, overwhelming the enemy's kinetic barriers and causing catastrophic damage. Flight time was 12 seconds

Even a Reaper could not last long in the face of such firepower. The first salvo slammed the Reaper calling itself Monarch. Aboard the titan Captain Morsley resolved to buy Malkovich and his scouts a drink, if any of them lived long enough to see another bar. By the third volley the Reaper was showing visible signs of damage and by the eighth it had disintegrated, to the raucous delight of the entire bridge. "Scratch one cockroach" crowed Commander Laura Westerfield, the ship's XO, giving Morsley a thumbs up. 52 seconds into the shooting war and it was first blood to the Alliance.

_**Aboard the SSV Benjamin Davis**_

The Reapers seemed unfazed by the loss and continued to close with the cruiser line at subluminal speeds almost twice that which an Alliance ship of comparable size could achieve.

Hannah Shepard had placed her cruisers, frigates and destroyers just within effective mass accelerator range of the relay. In doing so she had effectively tied the Reapers to a short range knife fight far away from the Charon relay and Arcturus station. While theoretically the Reapers could have engaged their FTL drives and flown right past the Alliance ships, no combat being possible at super-luminal speeds, this would have required them to significantly lower their mass and correspondingly their kinetic barriers- a brief moment of weakness that the Alliance could exploit and use to cause havoc. While enterprising commanders had previously made successful use of "tactical FTL", this was a high risk option best suited for fighters and frigates and certainly unsuitable for hulking behemoths such as the Sovereign class dreadnoughts. Therefore, so long as the Alliance was in gun range of the mass relay, the rest of the system was safe. However it also meant that the cruiser line was almost immediately in hot action and was soon fighting for its life.

From the Reaper fleet emanated thousands Oculus drones, swarming in great clouds towards the fleet, malevolence emanating from their glowing red eyes. The Combat Air Patrol of F-61Trident Fighters put up by the cruisers gave a good account of itself, downing 2 or 3 Oculi for every plane they lost, but would nonetheless be soon overwhelmed. Suddenly, a flight of 4 Oculi broke through the fighter and GARDIAN screen and embedded themselves in the hull of the battlecruiser SSV New York- flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron's 4th Division. In sequence they detonated, tearing great gashes out of the starboard beam. The stricken cruiser turned aft and began to fall back while the rest of its division closed in to cover its retreat, but now the Oculi smelled blood and began to converge on the damaged vessel. In a moment the New York became the focal point of the battle as both sides shoved forces together to either save or destroy it. At first it seemed like the alliance had the upper hand, the fighters and frigates Hannah Shepard vectored in catching a large cloud of Oculi in flank and devastating them, but there were too many drones and not enough ships. An Oculus crashed into the bridge of the New York, wiping out the command staff. Another impacted on the portside wing, knocking out thrusters 4 and 5. Still the cruiser limped on. The escort destroyer SSV Argonaut, whose commander had over committed on her attack run, was swarmed and destroyed, exploding in a flash before any of the crew could reach the escape pods. While tragic, her sacrifice diverted attention from the New York just long enough for her to activate her FTL drives and jump away.

From his detached position aboard the Benjamin Davis, Hackett's analytical mind quickly took stock of the brief engagement. He was not impressed. While a fine admiral, Hannah Shepard was still not thinking in terms of total war. The strenuous and ultimately successful rescue effort had succeeded in saving the New York, but at the cost of breaking up the cohesion of the battle line- something the Reaper destroyers moving into contact would surely punish. It would have been better to accept the loss of one cruiser in the skirmish phase in the hopes of saving several in the main fight. Hackett did not blame Shepard for her mistake- in an ordinary war it would have been the right decision- cruisers are valuable and difficult to replace. Instead he blamed himself for not adequately driving home the severity of the Reaper threat. "My God" he thought, "the price is already being paid".

Using the distraction provided by the Oculus drones the Reapers divided their fleet to take on the Alliance. The bulk, consisting of 6 capitol ships and 25 destroyers, bore down on the cruiser line. Their volleys of fire did not benefit from target relay ships but still claimed 2 cruisers, with the SSV Mexico City narrowly avoiding the same fate when the Reaper's blast of superheated ions was deflected at the last moment by a fortuitous asteroid. A second group composed of 4 capitol ships and 12 destroyers engaged the orbital defence platforms(ODPs) around the exodus relay. Each of these 4 space stations was equipped with a dreadnought class gun and numerous smaller armaments. However, they were virtually immobile and even their formidable shields could not last long in the face of Reaper firepower. They were made short work of. The final group of Reapers closed on the dreadnoughts with all possible speed, hoping to draw fire away from the cruiser action that was emerging.

The disordering of the Alliance line was sorely felt as the first group of Reapers descended with overwhelming force on the extreme left flank of Shepard's command- the 5th Cruiser Squadron's 11th Division. In rapid succession 3 cruisers and 2 frigates were destroyed, without inflicting loss on the Reapers. Quickly re-organising, Shepard swung back hard and concentrated cannon fire downed a pair of destroyers, causing the rest to break off.

Sensing an opportunity, the 22nd Escort squadron(3) committed to a counter attack, hoping to close to torpedo range and bring down the Reaper's kinetic barriers so the rest of the fleet could tear them apart. Aggressive tactics like these had handed the Alliance victory against the Turians in First Contact and were the scourge of pirates across the galaxy. However, there were simply not enough ships to break through the veritable wall of fire the Reapers put up. Ride of the Valkyries it was not; Götterdämmerung it was. By the time the flotilla had limped back to Alliance lines it had lost 2 destroyers and 5 frigates. The abortive counter attack over, the Reapers resumed the offensive.

By now Shepard had re-ordered her forces and losses were much more even. The Alliance, supported by fire from the dreadnoughts, traded another 2 cruisers and a frigate for 3 destroyers and a capitol ship-the Tormentor. Briefly checked, the Reapers pulled back again and prepared for another attack, linking up with the second group who had by now dealt with the ODPs.

So far so good, thought Hackett, the Reapers had been prevented from carving out a beachhead from which they could engage their FTL drives and were taking significant casualties. But Shepard's force had already lost almost a third of its ships and could not keep this up for much longer. It would still be almost an hour before the 4th Fleet was assembled and ready to link of with the 1st and launch the counter attack- there was no way the cruisers could hold that long. If he wanted to hold the Relay, and with it the system, he had to launch the carrier strike now, a long way off the concerted combined arms strike he had envisaged in his plan. Moreover, he smelled a trap- if the Reapers had significant forces waiting in reserve they could jump in and hit the Alliance while they were overextended and at their most vulnerable. Nevertheless, he felt he had little choice, failing to do so would be tantamount to conceding defeat. Grudgingly, Hackett admired the Reaper's ability to put him on the horns of a dilemma, where there were only least bad options. He turned to the CIC, aflurry with activity as status reports, casualty tallies and intelligence analysis poured in.

"Commander Adama, launch all alert fighters. Specialist Wilson, radio Tanaka and tell him to make his frigates ready for action. We're going in".

_**Meanwhile aboard the SSV Tai Shan**_

Despite the general elation and back patting at the destruction of the Dictator, Morsley knew that the Battle Squadron was in grave danger. Their early success had relied upon luck as much as anything. Gunnery in space was like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet, from thousands of miles away while that bullet was preforming evasive manoeuvres, - not a feat that could be repeated regularly. Only once a hit had been scored did long range fire become reliably accurate, the exact targeting data that led to the initial success being adjusted to take into account the target's manoeuvres, allowing repeat bombardments. That the Dictator had been hit on the first salvo was in itself something of a minor miracle, supplemented by the superb data they had been receiving from Malkovich. Morsley doubted they would be so lucky again- one did not, after all, win the lottery twice in one day.

This left the 4 dreadnoughts in the path of a powerful Reaper squadron, consisting of 5 Capitol ships and 13 destroyers, with little chance of stopping them before they closed to firing range. Even worse, while the Reapers apparently could not see Malkovich's Normandy class frigates, they could track the signals they were emitting and receiving and use these to triangulate a general area in which a frigate was hiding. A screen of destroyers swept through these positions to localise the frigates who, seeing the game was up, jumped away- all except the unfortunate SSV Nile whose Captain was too slow to recognise the sudden danger he was in and was caught by a pair of destroyers just before his jump, while his shields were at their weakest, and destroyed. Being too valuable to risk in frontline combat, the Normandys would play little further part in the battle. A sensible strategic decision Morsely thought, but one that left his ship without close up targeting solutions.

Recognising the limitations of long range gunnery, Admiral Singh assigned each of the dreadnoughts a capitol ship to employ "searching fire" against. Once one ship had scored a hit the rest would switch fire to that target and blast it to pieces. To Morsley's immense pride it was the Titan that scored first, slamming into the capital ship Overseer with a hypersonic 21kg round that staggered the Reaper but did little damage. Unlike the Dictator , the Overseer slowed to a virtual halt, taking only local evasive manoeuvres, and ran a large positive charge through its drive core to increase its relative mass, substantially boosting its kinetic barriers. In doing this it hoped that the rest of the Reapers could close with the Alliance before it was overwhelmed by the torrent of shells raining down on it. The Overseer emerged from the battle missing two claws and with burning craters all along its super-structure but very much alive.

It was already getting hot aboard the Tai Shan. With the massive bow gun in constant operation and the engines working at full capacity to prevent the ship's artificially high mass falling into Themis's gravity well, the dreadnought was producing far more heat than it could successfully radiate. The problem of heat endurance was never one that spacefaring navies had solved and it carried with it very real combat limitations, such as the need to keep the dreadnought's port and starboard guns, which could have profitably been employed against the Reaper's destroyer escorts, silent to conserve heat. Somehow Morsely doubted the synthetic bastards on the other side of the hill were having the same issues. While the trick of hiding behind the planet was neat, fighting this close to a celestial body only made the problem more acute, so much so that the Titan had already reached 20% of its maximum tolerable heat capacity.

Right now, however, Morsely had more immediate concerns. The Reapers had reached Themis and were being engaged by the 35th and 44th patrol flotillas, who were hoping to screen the dreadnoughts for long enough that their big guns could help break up the 2nd Reaper attack on the cruiser line. This was achieved with the destruction of the Tormentor but came at a high price- the cruiser SSV Vienna and the frigates SSV Philippine Sea and SSV Lepanto were blotted from the sky. The frigate screen scattered and prepared to jump away.

A Reaper capital ship came over the horizon, the Herald of Darkness, it readied its magnetohydrodynamic cannon.

"Full port rudder. Flank Speed. All hands brace for impact". In CIC and across the ship the crew leapt to Morsley's instructions with an alacrity borne of desperation, the sudden reversal in their fortunes serving only to make the danger seem more immanent.

They were fast enough, but only just, the shot searing a gash in the starboard bulkhead as it sailed wide. As the Reaper prepared to fire again Admiral Singh's voice sounded over the intercom.

"Everybody bug out and RV at the cruiser line. Let's leave this knife fight shit to the frigate jocks"

"You heard the Admiral Sir. Let's get the bloody hell out of here" implored Commander Westerfield, her voice tremoring, but only slightly "We're not going to survive a direct hit from that thing". Morsely nodded and the helmsman, Pilot Ewan McMaster, plotted jump co-ordinates. The crew collectively stiffened for the sudden acceleration and… nothing happened.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIT." McMaster screamed "the drive core is operative but FTL is not engaging. We are fucked. We are so-"he paused, gritting his teeth as he lurched the Titan through a 90º corkscrew turn to starboard. A second Reaper shot sailed harmlessly by. "-fucked. I can't keep this up forever sir."

"Find me the problem and fix it" Morsley bellowed. The crew were already double and triple checking systems it record time, looking for the malfunction that was keeping them in the hornets' nest.

"I have it" a breathless ensign from across CIC yelled "the Reapers are through our firewalls- they've been hacking us since they first signalled us their names. The jump computer thinks we have built up a far greater static charge than we have and is refusing to enter FTL so that we don't Cherenkov irradiate ourselves. Manual overrides have been deactivated."

Electronically disabled, Morsley thought, what an embarrassing way to lose a ship- not if he could help it.

"Westerfield, get down to the engine room and figure something out. I don't care what it takes but get that drive working."

"Aye, Aye Sir" the XO sprinted down the hallway.

"In the meantime we have a Reaper to kill. McMaster- all ahead flank. Port and Starboard batteries engage". By closing the range Morsley could use his ship's smaller mass to its advantage, making tighter turns than the hulking Reaper. Hopefully this would allow the dreadnought to avoid the Reaper's main gun and whittle it down with its numerous smaller armaments. But first the Titan had to make it into close range in one piece. Morsley quickly said a silent Hail Mary and gripped his chair ever tighter.

The Reaper fired once, twice, three times, but McMaster was on fire. Only the second shot connected and the impact was glancing- while the portside hangar bay suffered significant damage, immediate impact on combat operations was minimal. Within a minute the Tai Shan had the Reaper in visual range, the two ships circling 20 kilometres apart, in high altitude orbit in the upper atmosphere of Themis' northern hemisphere.

Mounted in double and quad turrets along the sides of the Kilimanjaro class dreadnought were numerous MAC II Cannons, 156 in all, each with the firepower of a pre-thanix frigate's main armament. Individually they were of little consequence to the Reaper, but collectively, firing once every two seconds, they were dealing a death by a million cuts. Morsely had rolled the Tai Shan 45º to port to allow as many turrets as possible to engage the Reaper; his plan was to bring the titan close enough that he could launch the disruptor torpedoes slung in Javelin mounts on the ships undercarriage to bring down the Reaper's kinetic barriers and then deal the death blow with the cannons. Targeting was thus focused as much as possible on the Reaper's known and suspected GARDIAN installations to ensure the torpedoes a clear run to the target, although this was made difficult by the novel design of Reaper warships. Flashes of light twinkled over the Herald of Darkness, each signifying the impact of a 2kg ferrous slug accelerated to relativistic speeds. To the crew lucky enough to have access to a viewing port the Reaper seemed wreathed in flame, aglow from the constant barrage. Despite everything, most acknowledged this as a rare and beautiful sight, space combat almost never taking place within visual range and even veterans never having actually seen the results of their handiwork.

Despite having difficulty employing its main gun, the Herald was by no means defenceless. Each of its 6 tentacles housed a smaller magnetohydrodynamic weapon which it had little difficulty bringing to bear on the Tai Shan, these were less powerful but still capable of enormous destruction. Worse still, to achieve speeds high enough to avoid the Reaper's main gun, McMaster had to lower the Titan's mass and accordingly its kinetic barriers, leaving little to stop the Reaper's attacks.

The two ships orbited in an ever tighter circle, tearing great chunks out of each other as they closed the distance. While both were suffering damage, it was clear that the Herald was winning, its secondary armaments quickly burning through the Tai Shan's ablative plating to impact on the hull beneath. Already damage control parties were stretched to breaking, barely capable of containing the major fires that had broken out, let alone reversing them.

At close range the invisible infrared rays of each ship's GARDIAN batteries could be added to the carnage. Deadly accurate and moving at the speed of light, both sides employed them in precision strikes on valuable targets- for the Alliance the highest priority being to knock out the Reaper's own GARDIANs with counterbattery fire. At 5km out Morsley ordered the torpedoes launched. The ship rolled sharply to starboard to bring the as yet undamaged undercarriage to bear and fired a volley from each of the Javelin launches, before completing the rotation and re-engaging with the gun turrets. Of the 16 torpedoes only 2 reached their targets- insufficient to bring down the Herald's barriers but enough to disrupt them long enough that the Tai Shan could knock out the main gun and destroy two of the Reaper's tentacles.

This was not enough. The disruptor torpedoes represented Morsley's last, best hope at destroying the Herald. With them launched all he could hope fore was that Westerfield could get the drive core back online before the Tai Shan was inevitably overwhelmed. The rest of the squadron having successfully jumped away, the Tai Shan was now the target of over a dozen Reaper's, including 3 capitol ships. While her proximity to the Herald of Darkness precluded these from just standing off and blowing her away, they were closing fast and the Tai Shan's fate would be sealed once they arrived.

A destroyer came in hard and fast on the Tai Shan's stern, firing at her engines. A concerted volley tore it apart before it could do any major damage, scattering debris over almost 10 kilometres of sky. Despite the Titan's grim situation it was not going down without a fight and still had more than enough firepower to ward of all but the strongest ships. Following this setback the rest of the destroyers stayed clear- this was to be a fight between heavyweights, with weaker vessels relegated to mere onlookers.

Morsely felt his ship shudder around him as yet another shot impacted. The hull creaked and groaned but held together-for now. "We can't take much more of this" he whispered as damage reports, each worse than the last, rolled in.

"Barriers are down. We have multiple hull breaches. Fire aboard the ship."

"We've lost engines 3 and 4. Losing electrical power- switching to backup generators."

"Life support is down on deck 3. No survivors, I repeat no survivors."

The Reaper had manoeuvred to gain altitude relative to the Tai Shan, forcing her down into the 400 mile per hour winds of Themis' upper atmosphere. The air rushing through the gaps in the hull and the stresses of atmospheric re-entry, for which dreadnoughts were not designed, threated to tear the Tai Shan apart even if the Reaper's guns didn't do it first. At the current rate of descent the Titan could not last longer than another 30 seconds.

"Laura now would be a heckuava time for some good news" Morsley could barely get the words out. As the Tai Shan fell into the atmosphere G forces approaching double digits bore down on the crew, already causing several to fall unconscious. It was all McMaster could do to prevent the ship from entering into an uncontrolled spin from which there could be no recovery.

"Overrides are still down but the core itself is operative. If we can run a negative current through it by hand we still stand a chance of lowering our mass enough to enter FTL" What Westerfield suggested was almost unprecedented in the history of faster than light travel. The minute calculations of the exact ampage and voltage to run through the eezo core were ordinarily only possible with the strongest super computer. To be sure all alliance navy engineers, as well as the engineers of the other council races navy's, were mathematicians and physicists of the first order, but what they were attempting would be like solving pi in a notebook. In the most recent test series 3 out of 5 drones were destroyed and their theoretical crews killed by Cherenkov radiation, before all efforts were called off and the practice banned, and in those cases the scientists had hours to work out the calculations, while now the engineers had only minutes. But the Tai Shan was so desperate that Morsely agreed without a moment's thought.

"One more thing sir" Westerfield's voice trembled in earnest "the flux capacitors have been disabled, the engineering crew and I will… not survive the plasma vent. I- It's been an honour sir." Before Morsely could respond she turned the jump key. 1.21 gigawatts of negative charge surged through the drive core, propelling the ship to faster than light speeds- the engineers had done the impossible and had given their lives doing it.

In CIC Morsley knew that there would be plenty of time to reflect on their sacrifices, but not now. The crippled Tai Shan had no place in the battle line, it would make for the citadel in accordance with Hackett's orders. Burning and broken, the final relay jump proved too much for the devastated dreadnought and it broke up in the Serpent Nebula, but slowly and gracefully, giving the patrolling Turians plenty of time to evacuate the surviving crew. In the escape pod Morsley looked at the ship one last time. The battered hulk bore little resemblance to the proud warship he had commanded. He knew he had done all he could to save her- he wondered if that made it better, or worse, or if it even mattered at all. Then he turned away.

**SSV Benjamin Davis**

"… We're going in". Alpha strike. The order had remained unchanged since the Second World War. It consisted of launching every available interceptor, fighter and torpedo bomber at the enemy with all the subtlety of a charging Krogan Battlemaster.

Right behind them were the Fleets' Attack Flotillas- each consisting of a cruiser and 4-6 frigates. In peacetime they were the beating heart of the Navy, conducting show the flag and anti-piracy operations across the galaxy, in wartime they operated as wolfpacks, hounding even the largest warships to death in close range knife fights where they could use their superior manoeuvrability to their advantage. Their relationship with the fighters was symbiotic. The disruptor torpedoes of the fighters brought down the kinetic barriers of the enemy ships, leaving them totally exposed to the frigates' thanix cannons; in return, the Flotillas gave cover for the fighters before and after they made their bomb runs.

The CAG(4) for the Alpha Strike was RADM Bill Adama- callsign Husker, an exceptionally experienced and gifted pilot who had flown in the First Contact War. He would have given anything to be out there flying with his pilots, but was cooped up in CIC aboard the Benjamin Davis, the Navy having judged the demands of co-ordinating several hundred spacecraft and the demands of desperately trying to avoid being shot down to be incompatible. Fighter combat in space had taken an ugly turn with the advent of GARDIAN class lasers, although short ranged, the GARDIAN moved at the speed of light and was almost 100% accurate, meaning that the first fighters would get hit, no matter the skill of the pilot. It was only later in the battle when the lasers overheated or battle damage shut them down, that the fighters could get through. To him then fell burden of ordering his men to their likely deaths, his own relative safety making the burden all the more unbearable.

The strike group used the gravitational slingshot of the star Arcturus to hurl themselves into the fray, closing rapidly with the Reapers at the exceptionally high FTL speeds only smaller ships could achieve. Whether the Reapers were surprised or not Hackett couldn't tell, but they responded to the threat with their customary efficiency and quickly re-organised their force, the destroyers forming a picket line to guard the more valuable capitol ships and mutually support each other by fire. The strike force entered combat range and disengaged FTL.

Centuries ago a prescient general, Maurice De Saxe Adama thought, quipped that battles are won and lost in a single minute. How apt! Though combatants and weapons changed, war itself remained constant, subject to its own immutable laws such that an axiom coined for warfare with pike and musket could apply in space. Adama knew that this was that unforgiving minute- his unforgiving minute. If the strike group could break the Reaper picket line and the rest of the fleet could follow through, surely their momentum would carry them all the way to the relay. However if the strike group broke upon the Reaper line like a wave on the rocks, the fleet would be left devastated, scattered and demoralised and the system would be lost. There was no further time for thought- this was the time for deed. The various elements of the strike group began to break off and zero in on their particular targets, Adama directing their manoeuvres like a conductor directing an orchestra.

"Rattlesnake 1 this is Husker, be advised I have a flight of Oculus drones on your port side closing fast over"

"Roger that Husker, I have them in visual. Engaging. Out" On the screen in front of him the red dots and blue dots came together, both disappearing alarmingly fast.

"Pelican 3 reporting in, we're having trouble penetrating their destroyer screen. Have taken 50% casualties. Breaking off and coming in for another attack run"

"Copy that Pelican. Am detailing the 25th, 35th and 44th wolf packs to soften them up for you" replied Adama, sending orders to the three frigate flotillas. He hadn't recognised the voice on the radio. George Morgan was supposed to be leading Pelican 3, he had been one of the top students when Adama was an instructor at flight school and had been at his son's wedding. Now he was gone, along with half the pilots in his squadron.

"Samurai 6 acknowledging last" Admiral Tanaka's voice crackled over the radio. Always an Admiral to lead from the front, Tanaka was aboard the light cruiser SSV Scott, flagship of the 22nd Attack Squadron. Known as Banzai squadron, the 22nd had inherited Tanaka's ethos of "death before dishonour" and were charging hell for leather at the Reaper line, taking heavy casualties. At point blank range they opened fire with their GARDIAN systems, blinding the Reapers own point defences against the fighters, although at the cost of the Scott and a pair of frigates, with Tanaka himself killed or presumed dead. Adama vectored additional planes towards the weakened enemy.

"Husker, this is Sparrow 2-4. We've lost Bryce, Chase and Kagali but we are through. Locked on a destroyer. Torpedoes away. Torpedoes away. I- argh" the transmission ended in a burst of static as the young pilot's life was extinguished in a burst of light. But his sacrifice was not in vain. Seconds later 3 Frigates- the SSV Fallujah, the SSV El Aleman and the SSV Bunker Hill pounced on the now defenceless destroyer and in a volley of blasts from their thanix cannons, blew it apart, narrowly avoiding the return fire from a second destroyer than had moved in to fill the gap. F-61 Trident Fighters poured through the hole in the Reaper destroyer screen, loosing torpedoes by the hundred and causing mass havoc. In their wake came the frigates, thanix cannons blasting. In seconds the Reapers lost 2 capitol ships and 9 destroyers. Grudgingly they began to fall back, all the while inflicting appalling, heart-breaking casualties on the valiant Alliance pilots and sailors who had broken their lines.

For a brief, beautiful moment it appeared that the Alliance had won. As the Reaper took casualties gaps were opening up in their defences, allowing individual ships to be swarmed and overwhelmed, leading to further gaps. The fleet smelled blood and moved in for the kill. Despite all losses there was no joy like chasing a beaten enemy, even Hackett having difficulty restraining the attack. Ship after ship committed to the hunt. Another half dozen destroyers went up, followed by a capitol ship. With the Reapers clearly in some disorder even the carriers moved up, hoping to recover and re-arm the planes they had sent out in time to launch a second strike. A single destroyer fell back through the mass relay. 10 seconds later it return, bringing with it the rest of the Reaper Armada

Reality hit like an atomic bomb.

"DRADIS contact, more Reapers and there's a shitton of them" exclaimed an excitable Systems Officer "I have 80 capitol ships and hundreds of destroyers emerging from the relay. They're heading straight for the us Sir"

A Sovereign Class capitol ship, this one calling itself Forerunner, fired its' cannon, hitting the flight deck of the carrier SSV Einstein. For a moment it appeared the little damage had been done. Then the Einstein exploded with such force that it took out the cruiser SSV Lisbon escorting it nearby.

Hackett's spirits sank as he watched the ships appear. The Reapers played us for a fool and we fell for it he thought. They sent a portion of their fleet to drawn us in for the rest to ambush. There was no question anymore of holding the relay- the Reaper fleet that had just arrived was almost 5 times the size of the initial Reaper fleet and they had difficulty enough as it was defeating that. To be honest there was never a chance of holding the relay in the face of such a force and the Reapers, recognising that a clever Admiral would not through his forces away in a battle against a superior force, had deliberately made themselves seem weaker than they were to induce the Alliance to fight. Not for the first time in the battle Hackett found himself admiring his opponent's patient cunning and resolve.

Sometimes it takes as much courage to retreat as it does to attack. When asked later Hackett, a man no stranger to bravery, said that the decision to retreat from the battle was the bravest he ever took. It was taken in the full knowledge that the fall of Earth would be the direct result and that perhaps he would be blamed for it but was also unquestionably the right move. To stand and fight, however tempting, would be to throw away the fleet for no gain, leaving the rest of the Systems Alliance defenceless and the Reaper's job that much easier. There was a time and a place for heroic, forlorn last stands but this was not that time.

However, retreat was easier said than done. With the Reapers well within range simply turning around and engaging FTL was. A sacrifice had to be made to buy time for the rest to get to a safe distance. It was to be a suicide mission. With Tanaka dead and the Tai Shan in the process of breaking apart , the 2nd fleet found itself the least valuable to the allied war effort. In the brutal calculus of military logic this meant that, through no fault of their own, their lives were worth less than their comrades in the 3rd and the 5th .

"This is the Admiral speaking. All 3rd Fleet and 5th Fleet elements disengage. Head for the Nebula Relay. All 2nd Fleet elements commence rear-guard screening and fall back once the rest of the fleet gets away. This is not over- we will return but now we need to live to fight another day. Hackett out." The men and women of the 2nd Fleet took the news of their impending deaths with good grace, happy to give their lives so that their brothers and sisters might live. The order was considerably less well received in the 3rd and 5th Fleets. Not only were they to be expected to abandon Earth, but also their comrades in arms. For some this was too much and they ignored the command, preferring certain death to the shame of leaving their friends behind. Nevertheless for most their good discipline and respect for Hackett prevailed and they beat a reluctant retreat.

The remaining ships of the 2nd Fleet- some 8 cruisers and 14 Frigates- formed a hasty line of battle. Towards them swept the Reaper hoard, as merciless in victory as they had been vengeful in defeat. There was no fight, just slaughter as ship after Alliance ship was blown apart, the few crew who made it to the escape pods only delaying their demise a few hours, until their oxygen ran out or they were harvested by patrolling destroyers. Not every ship was destroyed, after the 3rd and 5th jumped away the remaining survivors engaged tactical FTL, consequences be dammed, and made for the relay. Nevertheless it was clear that as a fighting force the 2nd Fleet was finished. But it had accomplished its final mission, allowing the rest of the fleet to get away safely, first to the Horsehead Nebula and then to the rally point at the Citadel. The Alliance had suffered a crippling defeat, but the war was not over.

Task Force Arcturus had lost a dreadnoughts, a carrier, 19 cruisers and 45 frigates-about 10,000 Sailors and Marines. From the first shot fired to the last ship away, the battle had lasted 20minutes.

Some hours following the battle, almost as an afterthought, a capitol ship pulled up alongside Arcturus station and systematically tore it apart, killing some 45,000 people, including Prime Minister Amul Shatsi and destroying the headquarters and communication centre of the Alliance Navy.

**The Battle of Earth**

If the Battle of Arcturus was a rout, the Battle of Earth was a massacre. The 1st Fleet was the largest and the best equipped in the Alliance Navy, yet it simply didn't have the weight of shot to put up any meaningful resistance against the hundreds of Reapers pouring through the Charon Relay. The rough numerical parity between TF Arcturus and the Reapers they faced allowed them to give as good as they got. There was no such luck for the 1st fleet. They were simply overwhelmed. By the time Admiral Ines Lindholm realised resistance was futile she had lost 50% of her command, including the dreadnought SSV Fuji. She was to lose another 10% in the retreat before she could link up with Admiral Hackett at the citadel.

Despite having a few minutes of advance warning, the 4th Fleet put up even less of a fight. Comprised mostly of obsolete and reserve vessels, it only had 2/3rds of its ships outside of Earth's atmosphere when the Reapers struck. The dreadnought SSV Everest was destroyed without firing a shot, while the carrier SSV Peter Higgs went down in a brave but pointless defence of Luna Base Armstrong. The Reapers first targeted communication relays and command centres, leaving the resistance on Earth disorganised and relying on ancient radio towers for communication. Soon whole continents were out of communication with each other, what resistance there was reduced to relying on personal and local initiative without central direction.

In focusing on communications the Reapers left themselves momentarily exposed to the powerful orbital defence platforms guarding Earth and took correspondingly heavy casualties, the International Space Station doing particularly well, downing 2 destroyers and a score of troop transports, at least until it in turn was destroyed by a squadron of capitol ships. Even while the space battle raged overhead, the Reapers were descending, annihilating entire cities with populations in the low millions, including Adelaide, Hamburg, Al Jubail, and Fort Worth. The Alliance headquarters in Vancouver was another priority target, with the defence council being killed in the opening strikes, 9 minutes after the Reapers had come through the Charon Relay.

**Author's Notes:**

I have tried to stay as close as possible to cannon when writing but bioware did not make it easy for me. For example the amount that a Reaper outclasses council ships is horribly inconsistent in the codex, with the cruiser in Vancouver harbour taking several direct hits before blowing up but other entries saying even dreadnoughts never survive even a single hit. Fortunately this inconsistency gives me a good degree of leeway. I have tried to give the Reapers significant and noticeable advantages but not make it so one sided that there is no point writing about space battles. After all it is no fun to write or read about one ship after another being blown up without being able to do any damage in return.

As to the sciency bits, I am no scientist but made considerable effort to make it appear at least plausible within the rules that bioware set out for me. In particular the relationship between a ship's drive core manipulation and its shield strength was hinted at but never concretely established so I have had to infer a relationship that I think seems reasonable. If anybody thinks I'm getting it wrong, I'll be happy to debate it with them.

I am more confident about the strategic level stuff that I am writing. In research for this project I looked a fair bit at naval warfare on Earth, to which space combat shown obvious and striking parallels. Moreover as a student of military history I have done a lot of reading about how wars are won and lost. Nevertheless, I relish the chance to debate anybody who thinks I have misjudged it.

Ship numbers were worked out by working backwards from the given numbers of dreadnoughts for each council species. My best guess for the Reaper gave them 300-400 capitol ships and 1400 destroyers. To beat them conventionally the council would have to have been about 4 times more prepared.

I apologise for any formatting errors as this is my first story. Reviews are welcome and encouragement is essential- this took a lot out of me to write and it would be nice to hear it was worth the effort. As to technique, I was a bit concerned that I had gone too much in the direction of Tom Clancy and violated the dictum "write about men not machines" let me know if this is something that needs fixing.

**Author's note #2**

Sorry about the month long delay. I have been doing a lot of writing but was jumping about to whichever bits of the war took my fancy, not concentrating on the pieces for the next chapter. On the bright side that means that I have done most of the work for chapters 3-the citadel (and 6th Fleet at Eden Prime) and 4- the Battle of Palaven. I should be able to get them up fairly quickly.

I moved the Anderson/Shepard bit to the next chapter to break them more thematically and to make them comparable in size. Sorry about making you read it again.

The only changes to this chapter were to raise the total number of carriers belonging to the Alliance from 6 to 11. I felt this was more in accordance with their doctrine (more carriers than dreadnoughts) and implied status as a great power- it is suggested more so than the Asari or Salarians. For comparison I have the Turians with 5 (but a ton of dreadnoughts.), the Salarians with 8 (it might have been a human innovation but it fits well with the Salarian way of war and they bought in heavily) and the Asari with none (although as their dreadnoughts are undergunned they can carry an unusually high number of planes.

If you are interested I can add an appendix of ship numbers and classes for each nation, with an added bit on doctrine and history for use in your own stories. I have most of it written down somewhere and it would be quite easy to piece it together and spruce it up a bit. Actually that sounds quite fun so I am going to do it anyway.

That's it for now. Keep reading and reviewing.

1 There are two kinds of mass relay, primary and secondary. Primary relays can propel a ship thousands of light years but only link to one other relay, its "partner". Secondary relays can link to any other relay over shorter distances, only a few hundred light years.

2 DRADIS (Direction, RAnge, and DIStance) is a series of highly sensitive detection, identification, navigation and tracking systems used to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, spacecraft, weapons ordinance, celestial bodies, and terrain

3 Consisting of 3 destroyers and 8 frigates, all drawn from the 2nd Fleet

4 Commander Air Group- the officer who co-ordinates the aircraft from the CIC (Combat Information Centre) of the lead carrier


	2. Chapter 2: Vancouver Burning

**The Fall of Vancouver**

"Anderson"

"You look good Shepard. Maybe a little soft around the edges" it was good to see Shepard again, thought Anderson, even under these circumstances. The man had done things no-one had thought possible and was quite possibly the finest soldier he had ever met. More than that he considered him a friend. "How are you holding up since being relieved of duty?"

"It's not so bad once you get used to the hot food and soft beds". Not so long ago Shepard had been, literally, the poster boy for the Alliance Navy. The had fallen from those heights when he started working for Cerberus and was currently under arrest and awaiting court martial for his involvement in the destruction of the Alpha relay, which had caused the deaths of 300,000 Batarians and brought the Alliance and the Hegemony to the brink of war. Although his conduct had been nothing less than honourable, his continued insistence that the Reapers were real had made him… inconvenient. To the authorities it was better that he was discredited and forgotten, so as not to rock the boat. At best he was painted as a paranoid and shell shocked veteran who saw enemies in every shadow. At worst, he was depicted as a dangerous lunatic, working for a terrorist human supremacist organisation. If he was any less of a man he would have said screw the Alliance and left the galaxy to burn. But the galaxy needed him, and here he was. "What's going on? Why is everyone in such a hurry?" Anderson paused for a moment. They hadn't told him.

"Admiral Hackett's mobilising the fleets. I'm guessing word's made it to Alliance command… something massive is heading our way"

"The Reapers?" Despite everything this must feel like a vindication to Shepard Anderson thought. All those years he had been warning us and no-one listened. Now he had been proven right. Anderson only wished he had his forbearance. If he had stayed on the council maybe they would stand a better chance now.

"We don't know. Not for certain" but they did know. How could it be anything else.

"It's the Reapers and we're not ready for them. Not by a long shot" snarled Shepard.

"Tell that to the defence council"

"Unless we're planning to talk the Reapers to death what good will that do?" Shepard's disdain for politicians was legendary and after what he had been through Anderson didn't blame him. Having been a politician himself, albeit briefly, Anderson took a more nuanced view.

"They're just scared. None have them have seen what you've seen" The pair turned a corner and were greeted by a redheaded Corporal.

"They're expecting you two, Admiral" she turned and led them down the hall. A female marine with long dark hair emerged from the council room.

"Ashley" exclaimed Shepard.

"Shepard" she replied. The two had seen action together aboard the Normandy SR-1 fighting Saren and the Geth 3 years ago. Anderson thought he detected other history between them, but resolved not to inquire. The Alliance had bigger things to worry about than the possible fraternisation of two officers.

"Lieutenant Commander. How did is go in there?" Anderson asked.

"I can never tell with them. I'm just waiting for orders now"

"Lieutenant Commander?" interjected Shepard "you've been promoted Ash"

"I'm sorry sir" the marine blushed "I didn't mean to keep you out of the loop.

"Admiral" the redheaded Corporal said insistently, and ushered them towards the council room. Shepard looked back, his eyes not quite meeting Ashley's, then turned away.

The council room was loosely circular, and well lit. The defence council was seated at a high table at the far side. There was a palpable sense of unease, bordering on fear, in the air.

"What's the situation" said Shepard brusquely.

"We were hoping you could tell us" replied Admiral Conway. He had been awarded the Star of Terra defending Mindoir 16 years ago, yet was evidently rattled.

"The reports coming in are unlike anything we have ever seen before" continued Admiral Cortez "whole colonies have gone dark. We've lost contact with everything beyond the Sol relay" Unbeknownst to the defence council the Battle of Arcturus was already in full swing. They did not have long.

"Whatever this is, it's incomprehensibly powerful" concluded Admiral Ramsey.

"You've brought me here to confirm what you already know. The Reapers are here."

"Then how do we stop them."

"Stop them?" Shepard snorted "This is about survival. Survival at any cost. We'll need the whole might of the galaxy if we are to have any chance to stop them." Silence fell over the room.

"That's it. That's our plan" exclaimed Conway. The Admirals looked uneasily at each other and conferred in hushed tones. As Conway was about to begin speaking again a frantic Lieutenant burst into the chamber. The security personnel unholsterd their sidearms. "Admirals. We've lost contact with Luna base" he gasped.

"The Moon" shuddered Anderson "They couldn't be that close already. Hackett would have sent word" Indeed he had. But the Reapers had destroyed the comm buoys.

"We have reports from UK headquarters" the Lieutenant continued, swiping his datapad at the blank monitor on the wall. On it appeared shaky images of what looked like a giant insect descending on Tower Bridge. Anderson's heart skipped a beat; he had been born in London. He still had family living there.

"What do we do" implored Ramsey. A sound like a foghorn boomed in the distance before Shepard could make his reply.

"We have to get to the Normandy" shouted Anderson. It was imperative that Shepard get off the planet alive. Although controversial, he was an almost mythical figure aboard the Citadel. More than that, he had been saying the Reapers were coming for years, now that they had his credibility would be at an all-time high. If anyone could rally the council's support it would be him.

A dark shape descended from the clouds. "Oh my God" gasped Admiral Cortez. The Reaper fired. Anderson dived. The whole room, whole earth seemed to be shaking, fire was everywhere. There was a strange ringing in his earns and when he brought his hands to them his fingertips were wet with blood. Coughing, he staggered to his feet. Shepard was lying amongst the broken bodies of the defence council, miraculously unharmed but dazed. Anderson pulled him up and handed him a pistol, taken from a dead security guard.

"I can't raise the Normandy. We're going to have to find a bigger radio and carve out an evac site". The two momentarily surveyed the Vancouver skyline in silent anger. Already 2 Reaper Capitol ships had landed and the sky was dark with troop transports. A flight of alliance fighters whipped past.

"Let's move" said Anderson, the two shimmied along the outside of the building until they reached a balcony. "Just like old times eh Shepard."

"I don't recall you ever being down in the mud with us grunts" retorted Shepard

"Careful Commander. I've been kicking alien ass since before you made it through basic" The two moved forward, taking out several husks-mindless humanoid machines that had once been people, before the Reapers 'harvested' them. They thought they heard Ashley on the radio but interference was heavy. As they moved through a wrecked apartment building the static suddenly lessened.

"We've made it to the Normandy but we're taking heavy fire" Ashley said breathlessly "Oh God, they're going to take down that cruiser(1)". Shepard and Anderson looked up to where the SSV Portland was duking it out manfully with a Reaper Destroyer over the harbour. Before their horrified eyes if suffered a devastating hit to its drive core, which exploded in a flash of blinding light. The shockwaves sent the two careening off the building and Anderson thought he felt a rib break. But they were both alive and had to link up with the Normandy before everything went completely to hell. Two shell shocked marines were hunkered down in the ruble ahead.

"You two alright? Do you have a radio?" asked Shepard.

"Get down, they'll see you" the less wounded soldier whispered, jerking his head to indicate who 'they' were. 3 grossly deformed figures were clustered around a body, apparently devouring it. They vaguely resembled Batarians- Anderson could only assume they were another one of the Reaper's menagerie of horrors. He and Shepard quickly gunned them down.

"There's a radio over there by the downed gunship" called the same soldier, pointing at a semi submerged pier by the harbour. Anderson and Shepard pushed forward, quickly dealing with the scattered Reaper forces barring the way. They activated the radio.

"Normandy this is Anderson. Do you read?"

"Admiral- what's your location" replied Ashley instantly, her voice free of interference.

"We're by a downed gunship in the harbour, activating locator beacon." Activating the locator beacon would broadcast their presence to the Reapers as much as to the Alliance, but with time of the essence they had little choice. They just had to hope the Normandy got there before the Reapers overwhelmed them.

A squad of the Batarian-things dropped in by what appeared to be meteor. They were cut down almost instantly by Shepard and Anderson's accurate volleys of fire, but ammo supplies were becoming a major concern, neither of them having planned on the day's sustained combat A second squad dropped in and were likewise summarily dispatched.

"If this keeps up we'll be down to using omni tools soon" shouted Shepard.

"Kinda makes you wish for the old M-7 Lancer doesn't it." countered Anderson. A third squad dropped in.

"Last mag" called Shepard; Anderson tossed him a thermal clip which he emptied in seconds, downing the two closest Cannibals. Anderson holstered his pistol- it still had one bullet in it, but he was saving that… just in case. He drew his knife.

"Cavalries arrived" crowed Jeff "Joker" Moreau. The SSV Normandy swooped in, GARDIAN system flashing as it took out the last of the Reapers. The Normandy was unlike any other ship in the Alliance Navy. Theoretically a frigate, she was the size of a cruiser and had twice the firepower. Built by Cerberus specifically for Shepard, she was now in Alliance blue and had been undergoing testing at Kennedy Spaceport, Florida while Shepard was awaiting trial. When the Reapers hit she was taken to Vancouver on the initiative of Joker and the skeleton crew of engineers and technicians who manned her. It was just as well, Anderson thought, they couldn't have lasted much longer.

The ramp lowered and Ashley and a second marine- James Vega emerged to provide cover fire. They had themselves been dramatically picked up from the roof of a collapsing skyscraper only minutes before. Shepard leapt aboard and turned around expectantly, beckoning Anderson towards him, grinning like a child who had just been given his favourite toy back. Anderson shook his head sadly. He had made his decision when the defence council had been taken out- someone needed to stay here and lead the resistance on Earth and with his background as humanities councillor he was the natural person to take command. He would not run from his duties a second time.

Shepard objected loudly to Anderson's decision "If you stay, I'm staying" he called and moved to get off the ship. Anderson placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We can't win this fight without help Shepard. Talk to the council, come back with the might of the galaxy behind you. I'll make sure there is an Earth left to save." Anderson sighed, this wasn't easy for him either "oh and consider yourself re-instated commander" he tossed Shepard his dog tags.

"I'll be back" Shepard cursed "And I'll bring every fleet I can… Goodluck Admiral"

"You too Shepard" Vancouver was burning. In the distance Anderson could see Seattle's old Space Needle collapse. He watched it fall with cold fury- the Reapers were taking his home from him, they were killing his people and destroying his culture. They would not do so without a fight. He watched the Normandy soar into the smoky sky until it was just a glint in the setting sun. There was still hope, so long as there were men like him; men like Shepard, there would always be hope. But Vancouver would not be the last city to burn.

**Vancouver**

In 30 years of warfare Anderson had never known such chaos. Things in Vancouver had only gotten worse after the Normandy's departure and it quickly became apparent that the city could not be held. To Anderson, however appealing staying and selling their lives dearly might seem, the priority now had to be on getting as many soldiers and civilians out as possible and living to fight another day.

The difficulty lay in co-ordinating a withdrawal in a city of 5 million people without an adequate or even functioning communications network, radio centres being specifically targeted by the Reapers and the airwaves clogged with jamming and confused request for instructions, leading to a complete collapse within an hour of the Normandy's departure. This reduced Anderson to using Napoleonic methods of command on a 22nd Century battlefield, unable to influence events much beyond his immediate line of site.

The result was mass confusion. Without direction from above there was no coherent battle plan: some units fell back, either of their own initiative or as Anderson's orders filtered through; others launched suicidal counter attacks, more motivated by rage than by military utility; most simply stayed where they were, holding their positions as best they could until someone- anyone could tell them what was going on and what they could do about it.

To make matters worse, the Alliance personnel defending Vancouver were mostly not combat soldiers. Clerks, cooks, mechanics and analysts, some of whom had not fired a rifle since basic, were in abundance but there were few marines, few men with the experience or predisposition to take charge when the situation got desperate. Thus, while raw courage was not in short supply, individual initiative and tactical proficiency were, compounding the problem of the lack of direction.

The battle was therefore fought as a series of isolated squad and platoon actions, the Reapers, having no command problems of their own, singling out and overwhelming holdouts with massive force before moving on to the next one. They were inflicting massive casualties in taking worryingly few in return.

Were it not for an early afternoon counter attack by the UNAS 40th Infantry Division, a National Guard outfit out of Washington State, Anderson believed he would never have gotten out of the city at all. While they could do little to blunt the Reaper attack, the infusion of trained manpower briefly stabilised the front and once Anderson reached their TAC HQ he was able to establish some semblance of control, although at the cost of the destruction of the 40th as a fighting unit. Even so, only 10% of the 5 million people in the city got out before the situation became so bad that Anderson himself had to board a shuttle and flee to a command bunker deep within the Cascade Mountains where rumour had it, NORAD was preparing a response.

**Cascade Falls**

The lights were flickering in NORAD HQ. Already husks were probing the outer defences of the facility, not enough to be worrying for now but that would surely change. There was an air of dejection among the bleary eyed soldiers manning the barricades. They looked beaten, flinching at the loudening sound of battle, unable to comprehend what was going on, why this was happening. Seeing the gold braid on Anderson's now tattered dress uniform they let him pass without inspection, even though as an Alliance Admiral he did not technically have clearance to access a UNAS base.

General James Sawyer of the UNAS Pacific Command was in the control room of the central bunker hunched over a map of the western seaboard, red dots over the cities that had already been hit and blue dots over those projected to be next. One of these dots was squarely above Cascade Falls. Sawyer acknowledged Anderson as he entered the room.

"Admiral, glad to see you made it out in time. What the hell happened? Where's the Alliance- my boys are getting the shit kicked out of them."

"You've seen what we're up against, we can't win this without help and the Alliance has gone to get it. Until they come for us we need to organise a resistance so that there is an Earth left for them to save." Anderson hoped this was true-he didn't even know if the Normandy had gotten out of the system safely, let alone what had happened to Hackett.

"Not good enough. Your people dropped the ball and now mine are been torn apart so fast we won't have an army left by the end of the week. We don't have time to sit around waiting for the council to decide if we are worth saving. This is a human planet and only humanity will do whatever it takes to keep it." The General emphasized the last sentence in a way that chilled Anderson to the core.

"What do you mean-_whatever it takes_" he asked slowly, dreading the answer.

"David, haven't you heard?" Sawyer said, his voice softening a little "No you wouldn't have. In 30 minutes a B-88 Strategic Bomber will drop two Mk19 Thermonuclear Bombs on Vancouver, destroying whatever Reapers are in the city and denying them its resources" he paused, growing quieter "may God have mercy on our souls"

"You can't be serious. Those resources you're talking about are people. Our people."

"I know and anyone who hasn't made it out yet is either dead or Reaper meat. We'd be doing them a favour- better a nuke than being changed into a monster" Sawyer sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He knew logically he was making the right decision but he couldn't make himself press that button. Already the B-88 had been waved off twice to give more time for refugees to escape the city, he told himself this time he would do what was necessary.

"We can still save them. We can't give up hope" To Anderson it was black and white. This was wrong.

"Even if, by some miracle, you are right and the council does ride to the rescue it will be too late for the people of Vancouver. We are engaged in a war for the survival of the species, if we have to burn down one city to save two then we have a duty to make that choice- save your petty moralising for your memoirs." Sawyer had venom in his voice now. How could the Admiral be so short-sighted, so naïve? Why couldn't he understand that this was necessary?

"General I know the stakes better than anyone but this is too far. Why is humanity worth saving if we lose what makes us human in the process. We are better that this"

"Do you think I want to do this? It will haunt me until the day I die. I.."

"So don't" Anderson interrupted "You can see that this is wrong, no matter how much you rationalise it. We can beat the Reapers the right way- on our terms. And if we die trying, we will know we didn't lose our souls in the process". Sawyer sat in silence. Anderson might have been an Admiral but that was in the Alliance, he could not give orders to an officer of the UNAS. The decision was the General's alone. The radio squawked to life, Sawyer reflexively picked up the receiver.

"Speak"

"Sir we are approaching the point of no return. Are we go or no go?" Somewhere in the clouds a pilot was desperately weaving her craft through swarms of Oculi and roving Destroyers. Though now fully engaged in getting in and out of the target area alive, she could take solace in the fact that one way or another she would be carrying out the lawful orders of a superior office. She was just a tool through which someone else executed their decision, neither the blame nor moral responsibility were hers.

"Sir" she said more insistently when no answer was given. Another pause.

"Abort and return to base" Sawyer said finally, then turning to Anderson "the Alliance better pull through"

**Enrique Aguilar High School, Vancouver Suburbs**

"… what we begin to see in the later works of Matriarch Laytala is the Pilgrimage Wars being portrayed not so much as a victory of enlightenment over backwardness but as an unnecessary tragedy where neither side was in the right. Why does this matter you might ask? Asari culture places a much higher value on art than we as humans do. What we might see as simply a reflection of aesthetic beauty, to an Asari will be a social, political or religious statement expressed through a medium no less respected than a speech or a manifesto. Thus Laytala's Detorian Murals constituted not only her own magnum opus, but had tangible repercussions through Asari society and contributed to the Athamean renaissance of the past 500 years…"

Mark stifled a yawn. The professor was a short bespectacled man in his early 50s, appropriately named Mr Brown, and had been droning on about Asari history for the better part of an hour. It was starting to show. In the back of the class serval people, far from the teacher's roving eye, had gone to sleep, while next to Mark Latif Boumediere, a biotic, absent mindedly levitated his textbook, to the awe of the girls fawning around him. Mark shot him a dirty look and he winked, dropping the book with a slam and causing several of the sleepers in the back to sit up with a jolt. Mr Brown ignored them and continued talking.

_How does a guy like that marry a blue_ Mark keyed into his omni tool, sending the message to Carrie Palmer and motioning his head towards the professor when he saw her screen light up, indicating a receipt.

_Probably because the Asari value brains not looks_ she typed back indignantly _unlike some I might add_. She was one of the few still paying attention, ardently taking notes even while conversing with Mark. She was one of those rare people that genes or fate or God had smiled upon- blessed with beauty, intelligence, kindness, humility and so forth. Mark had been courting her with little success for almost a year, as had many of the boys in the class.

Before Mark could reply someone gasped and pointed to the sky. Dark shapes were descending on downtown Vancouver. There was a rush to the window. They were insectoid and massive; menacing yet strangely beautiful. Mark remember himself thinking _spaceships that big shouldn't be in atmosphere_ before the Reaper fired into what he knew to be Alliance HQ. The building erupted in flames and the classroom was stunned into silence. For a few moments they just stared at the Vancouver skyline. The sky darkened with many smaller ships who seemed to be landing troops and fireballs rained down all over the city.

Oh my God" breathed Carrie, who was beside him. She gripped Mark's arm tightly as an Alliance ship exploded over the harbour. The shock was starting to wear off and people were talking ever louder with fear and confusion in their voices; one girl burst into tears. Mark just stared. Far away he could hear gunfire and screaming but it didn't seem real. He fixated on the first ship, the one that had destroyed the Alliance HQ. For as long as he could remember he had wanted to be a hero. Once out of high school he intended to enlist with the marines and fight for humanity amongst the stars, winning glory on some far off, ill-defined, battlefield. But now, on the 27th September 2186, war had come to him; he didn't much like it. "We have to get out of here" he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Everybody stay calm" the Mr Brown yelled, though he was not doing a very good job of it himself. He was torn- the rules suggested that he should stay where he was and hunker down but the rules didn't make a lot of sense right now. The same questions were going through his head as everyone else. Who were the attackers? Were they safe? Were they going to die? And why was this happening? Why? Why? Why? Just when all eyes turned to him for instructions, the Peter Brown hesitated and in that moment he lost control instantly and irrevocably. Led by the captain of the football team, the students headed for the door in varying states of hysteria, the teacher making only a half-hearted attempt to stop them.

Mark stood still, staring at the starship. It was alien in every sense of the word and for that exotic, fascinating, mesmerising. Carrie slapped him hard across the face "Come on Mark we have to go" she implored "Please". The sudden sting snapped him out of his trance. He felt sick as the realisation dawned on him that this was all too real and then ashamed at feeling sick. This was not how he was supposed to react. He had frozen, putting others in danger, while Carrie, the girl he was supposed to impress, had taken it upon herself to rescue him. He felt more ashamed than ever.

The classroom was empty now, except for the two of them and the Mr Brown, who sat slumped at his desk in abject defeat. "Yes, we have to get out of here" Mark said again, louder this time. The two followed the rest of the students into the hall and then down onto the street. People were running in every direction, some crying, some on their phones to loved ones. Others were just milling about, as enthralled by the Reaper as Mark had been, many recording the scenes of devastation on their omni-tools.

A squad of soldiers ran past and began setting up a checkpoint at the intersection. Mark and Carrie followed them to ask what was going on but the Sergeant was in no mood to talk, telling them curtly to get down and to stay out of his way. A private took sympathy on the two and mentioned rumours of shuttle evacuations at the sports station, but stressed they were only rumours. Lacking a better option the two headed in that direction.

Before they could get 50 metres a series of explosions rocked the street, knocking the two to the group. A dark shape looking vaguely like a dragon flew overhead. By the time he and Carrie picked each other up, the screaming had gotten a lot closer and the surrounding buildings were on fire. Waves of humanoid creatures were attacking the soldiers at the checkpoint, running up the street and dropping in from above. Mark recognised them as husks from the vids of Geth attacks. It clicked that the massive ships looked the same as the Geth flagship that had attacked the Citadel- so this was another Geth attack- but that didn't make sense, the Geth had been beaten years ago. He remembered Commander Shepard's warning about the Reapers, could this be them?

It was largely academic until they could get out of their current predicament. Before their very eyes the kindly private was torn apart by a crowd of husks and the rest of the soldiers began to fall back, losing men as they went. Carrie and Mark scrambled to their feet and ran in the opposite direction, terror giving their feet wings. A husk lunged at Mark, almost touching him before being rammed aside by a passer-by. Before Mark could thank the man, a second husk jumped on the Good Samaritan's back and viciously bit into his neck, causing him to fall in agony, his lifeblood pouring on to the pavement. In an instant he was surrounded by husks, biting clawing and kicking the dying man , his screams becoming fainter with each passing second.

There was no time for grieving, though the man's death would haunt Mark's dreams for many nights to come. He saw the sergeant beckoning them towards the entrance of an old subway station, firing his rifle one handed. "Get over here" he shouted, cutting down a pair of husks with a scything burst of fire. The two ran towards him and were unceremonially shoved down the stairs as soon as they got with arms reach. The sergeant hammered a button and blast doors cut off the entrance, sealing out the husks.

"You two okay" he shouted down into the darkness.

Mark opened his mouth to respond but vomited instead, all thoughts of heroism forgotten. Carrie was in no better condition, shaking uncontrollably and holding onto Mark like a life preserver. There were 40 people in the makeshift bunker but only 3 of the 9 soldiers from the checkpoint. The sergeant was the only one even loosely keeping it together, the others weeping, praying, screaming or all three.

"Shut it" the man roared "now we're going to get you out of this mess, but I need you to keep it together" the noise lessened. "These tunnels will lead us out of the city but we need to stick together and move quickly. Does anyone here know how to use a gun? No. No matter. Travis, guard our six; McCoy you're with me. Everyone else stay close. Anyone who falls out gets left behind."

The subway tunnels had not run trains in almost half a century, the advent of cheap eezo cars making them redundant. Instead of boarding them up, the Alliance bought the whole system for a dime on the dollar and converted them into unground bunkers and storage spaces, one of the worst kept secrets in Vancouver. Finally maintenance costs had become excessive and the tunnels were abandoned but an old hand like the Sergeant could remember working there and hopefully the way around. The ceiling rattled ominously as explosions boomed overhead, the electricity suddenly cutting out and plunging the group into darkness, apart from the flashlights the soldiers had attached to their rifles. The floor was covered in about 3cm of water and no matter how quietly they tried to move every footstep set off a splash that seemed impossibly loud in the confined space. Each sound raised the tension until Mark felt he could no longer bear it. How could the Reapers fail to find them? Beside him Carrie took his hand, the two drawing courage from each other and moving onwards.

Afterwards Mark could not say how long they hand travelled: it could have been 10 minutes, or an hour, or longer. Time got distorted in that strange subterranean darkness, all he knew was that the fear would have driven him mad without Carrie. Eventually they saw daylight up ahead, where a section of the tunnel roof had collapsed. The Sergeant took his men ahead to check it out and told the rest of them to stay put. By now they were drenched and shivering from cold as well as fright. After what seemed to be an impossibly long time the soldiers returned.

"Good news" the Sergeant said "it seems to be clear. We've crossed to the other side of Boundary Bay and are in White Rock. There are some woods about 2km to the South East that we can disappear into. This is the home stretch everybody- we are going to make it."

The group clambered over the rubble into the daylight. It struck Mark how clean and pure the air was and he gulped it down. Carrie hugged him and then to his surprise kissed him full on the lips. "We've made it Mark" she said, laughing again "we've made it". In the distance they could still see the Reapers over Vancouver, but the noise of battle was diminished.

The soldiers formed the group into two columns, one on each side of the street and told them to move low and fast and to stay out of the open. There was no sign of life, though detritus strewn across the street, open doors and an absence of cars suggested that people had left in a hurry. It was eerily quiet.

Up ahead an overturned school bus blocked the road. The sergeant told the group to get down once again and led the soldiers up to scout out the obstruction. As he turned to beckon the civilians forward, a crack, like a car backfiring, rang out.

The Sergeant fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

6 vaguely humanoid figures emerged from behind the vehicle, guns blazing.

The soldiers dived to cover and returned fire, their bullets ringing off some sort of hardened carapace the creatures had over their skin.

"Run" the soldier named Travis called, before screaming and falling back holding his neck. The civilians needed no asking twice and scattered, Mark grabbing Carrie's arm and dragging her into the building on his left, where they dived behind the counter. Mark took one last look on to the street: the final soldier, McCoy, had put up a good fight and had killed two of the creatures, but he had been overwhelmed; nine of the civilians hadn't made it into the building and were left bleeding on the pavement; the sergeant was motionless on the ground, and before Mark's horrified eyes one of the creatures began tearing into his body, seeming to grow bigger as it did so. This sapped whatever courage Mark had left and the two ran without looking back.

Mark couldn't say how far they had run but knew the cannibals were in hot pursuit. Another fusillade of bullets whipped narrowly by his head , causing him to flinch and duck but keep going. He was pulling away from Carrie now, the forest the Sergeant had mentioned in clear sight, just an open field of less than 100 meters left to cross and they could lose the Reapers in the trees. He turned to motion her onwards.

Carrie gasped, her arms flung up and she fell, impacting the earth with a soft thud. She was still moving but her white shirt was stained crimson with blood. She tried to stand, staggered, and fell back into the dirt. In a flash and without thinking Mark had in his arms around her and half dragged, half carried her into an irrigation ditch, the only cover in the barren field. The water was knee deep and icy cold but neither of them felt it. Tenderly, he laid her against the mud wall

"Oh God Carrie. Oh God. Oh no" she couldn't die now, not when they were so close; not when they had come so far. She looked up at him, fear and pain and confusion in her eyes. Her small hands were clasped over her stomach, desperately trying to staunch the blood that flowed dark and fast between her fingers with each heartbeat. "You're going to be okay" he said desperately, trying to make it true through sheer force of will. In his heart he knew the wound was fatal, even if he had all the medigel in the world, no one could bleed that much and that fast and survive. "I- I'm going to get you out of here"

A line of splashes tore up the water, as the Cannibals closed in. In seconds they would be upon them. Instinctively, and to his eternal shame, Mark's first thoughts were for himself: about how he did not want to die in this cold and muddy ditch; about the woods, so tantalisingly close; about the girl, beyond help, beyond saving; and about the monsters, so damn close and getting closer. "I'll get help" he said, it was a lie he didn't have to tell, they both knew there was no help to be had and it wouldn't have mattered if there was, there was no time.

There was no final goodbye, no tear stricken "_leave me and save yourself"_. Carrie was beyond words, lapsing in and out of consciousness, her final cognizant act was to take hold of Mark's arm, drawing solace from his closeness in her hour of passing, asking him to stay with her until the end. It only made his betrayal more cruel. With a final "I'm sorry" he tore himself from her grasp and ran. He reached the woods and ran, kept running until the sounds of battle were far behind him and he could hear nothing but his own footsteps and sobs. When he could run no further, he collapsed and awaited his fate, crying tears of shame and guilt and fear.

**Author's Notes: **

War is hell isn't it. It sucked to write about Mark and Carrie- I quite liked her. Don't be too harsh on poor Mark, you probably would have reacted the same way if you were put in his position and if not you are a damn hero. Mark will return as part of the resistance and will get some small revenge.

Do you think Sawyer (if you spotted he was lifted from World in Conflict well done) should have dropped the bomb. I am torn- logically it makes sense but it just seems wrong. On balance I would say that the sheer desperation of the situation meant that he should have gone ahead. Sacrifices are necessary and all that. TIM wouldn't have hesitated, Hackett would have hesitated but eventually gone ahead with it, but Anderson is pretty much entirely paragon so he opposed it. What are your thoughts.

1 Yes I know in the game she says dreadnought, but the model is one of a cruiser- something bioware admitted was an oversight.


End file.
